


potter's flock

by subjectiveobjection



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Gen, potter is a Soft Dad(TM)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 07:55:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19372477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subjectiveobjection/pseuds/subjectiveobjection
Summary: this is just potter being a Dad to the rest of the 4077th because we all need that in our lives





	potter's flock

Potter is making his way to his office, the sun barely up, when he spies Radar digging a hole in the dirt with a tiny trowel. “Radar?” he says. “What in the name of Sweet Fanny Adams are you doing?”

When Radar turns and looks up at him, his eyes are red. “Uh, Wally-” _Oh, which is Wally? The dog with the spot on his eye?_ Potter wonders- “he got hit by a Jeep, sir, so I’m just gonna bury him, sir.”

“Oh,” Potter says. “Oh. I’m sorry, Radar.”

Radar sniffles. “I did all the reports and stuff, sir, they’re on your desk.”

Potter nods and walks into the office. Five minutes later, he comes back out with a shovel. “Here, I’ll trade ya.”

Radar looks surprised to see Potter again, but he hands over the trowel and takes the shovel. The hole is dug in ten minutes, and Wally- _so he_ was _the one with the spot-_ is lowered gently, and then they replace all the dirt. “I’ll put these away, sir,” Radar says. “Oh, and sir? Uh, thank you.”

Radar walks into the building, and Potter’s heart aches for the kid. _That dog probably would’ve lived as long as Radar if not for that damn Jeep,_ he thinks. _Radar’s a whiz with animals. Wally probably had a liver better than I do._

He yanks a few dying flowers, the ones that haven’t been crushed by people or Jeeps or gurneys, out of the dry Korean soil, and he lays them over Wally’s grave.

…

“God _damn_ it!” comes Klinger’s voice from his tent. Potter stops and frowns. He walks over to Klinger’s tent.

“Klinger?” he calls.

“What?” Klinger snaps, poking his head out. “Oh, no offense, Colonel.”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Potter says. “Why’re you shouting so loud they can hear you in Toledo?”

“I just realized that I’ve been doing the stitches on this dress all wrong,” Klinger says, wringing his hands. “So now I gotta rip out every single stitch, which is a waste of both time _and_ thread, and then I gotta redo everything.”

“Oh, I’m sorry about that, son,” Potter says. He contemplates Klinger’s situation for a second. “Here, lemme help you. I spent fifteen years doing all the sewing for my unit. The rest of ‘em would manage to prick their fingers if they got within fifty yards of a needle.”

“Oh, Colonel, you don’t need to do that, really,” Klinger says. “I’m sure-”

“Son,” Potter tells him, “I’m happy to help, so _let me help.”_

…

Potter is strolling down the Ginza, appreciating the breeze and the scenery and the general lack of death, when he spies a tiny little shop, with the word “RECORDS” painted on the front. He pulls out his wallet and looks inside- there’s enough to buy a real nice lunch from that place he’s always wanted to go to.

But Winchester hasn’t been having an easy go of it recently. The hotshot doctor, pride of both Boston and Tokyo, has found that Pierce can match or outstrip him in not just a few areas, especially those related to combat surgery. And he hasn’t found it out the easy way- no, instead, Major Ego has had to look to Pierce for guidance on a few occasions. And even then, the two of them have lost patients (and they’ve been having a rash of critically wounded soldiers in the past two weeks).

He sighs. Goodbye, Pacific Pearl Restaurant.

“What’s the fanciest record you people have?” Potter asks the desk clerk.

“Oh, I have just the thing!” the other man says. He pulls out a record and slides it across the counter. “Rachmaninoff.”

“Oh, good,” Potter says. “How much?”

When he hears the price, his jaw drops. “Very rare,” the shopkeeper says apologetically.

 _I’m never gonna do anything nice for the pompous bastard ever again,_ Potter thinks as he slams the money on the counter.

The next day, Potter walks to the Swamp, record in hand. “Winchester!” Potter calls, stepping inside. His nose wrinkles at the odor. Pierce and Hunnicutt have only been that smelly _once-_ and Potter hasn’t heard Winchester’s damn French horn recently, plus the two dodos aren’t even _here,_ so- “What in the Sam Hill stinks in here?”

“Colonel, that would be _Icelandic goat cheese_ that you would be disparaging,” Winchester says, gesturing at a plate with four slices of lumpy white stuff on it.

“Well, make like an Icelandic goat and _eat it!”_ Potter snaps. “Where’re the other Swamp rats? On strike?”

“Post-op duty, actually,” Winchester replies. His nasal Boston accent is somewhat diminished, and he’s drinking brandy without savoring it.

Potter thrusts the record at him. “I’ll trade you. You eat that bird poop right now, and I’ll give you this record I picked up in Tokyo.”

 _“What_ would I need _cowboy music_ for?” Winchester asks.

Potter grinds his teeth. He’s really starting to regret this. “It’s _Rachymaninoff,”_ he says.

Winchester’s eyebrows go up and he snatches the record. “Oh, my.”

“Eat that cheese! If I have to hear Pierce and Hunnicutt complaining about the smell in here, I’ll come back and shatter every record you own,” he threatens, striding out of the tent and away from the odor- it’s strong enough to kill sixteen horses and then some.

“Colonel,” Winchester calls after him. Potter turns on his heel, and even through the thin fabric of the Swamp, he can see that Winchester’s nose isn’t so high up in the air, that his pinched expression has loosened. “Thank you.”

“No problem, Winchester,” Potter replies.

…

Potter walks out of the mess-tent-turned chapel with a frown on his face. Mulcahy’s sermon hadn’t exactly been the inspirational, hopeful, strength-filled sermon that Potter had grown used to. Something’s eating the priest, and he’s gonna find out what.

Later, at lunch (or what passes for it around here), he takes a seat next to Mulcahy. “G’dafternoon, Padre,” he says.

“Oh, good afternoon, Colonel,” Mulcahy replies, poking at his mashed potatoes (or maybe that’s the corn).

“Nice sermon today,” Potter says.

“Oh, it was depressing, I know.” Mulcahy turns to face Potter, his boyish face looking much too old. “I just have so much on my mind, I couldn’t think of anything good. I mean, the orphanage had a fire, and they’re running low on blankets, and Sister Theresa is having a hard time wrangling money out of the government, and- well, you don’t need to hear about my problems. You came here to have a nice lunchtime conversation.”

Potter frowns. “You don’t exist just to uplift others, you know. Sometimes you need a priest of your own. And since we’re running short on those, you should settle for a kind ear.”

“I’ll check the supply room,” Mulcahy quips. “Oh, it’s just so terrible. I can count on these people for donations, but it’s really never enough.”

“Anything I can do to help, Padre?”

Mulcahy’s eyes are kind but firm- the face of someone who knows where his capability to fix things ends. “Afraid not, Colonel. Why, to make ends meet over there, you’d need to donate a whole month’s salary!” He laughs. “No, I’ll make rounds with the donation box again after lunch, and hopefully that’ll get the kids enough rice until next month rolls around.”

Potter leaves the mess tent wearing an even deeper frown than when he’d paid for Winchester’s record. An idea takes shape in his head- he’s been saving up for a nice weekend in Tokyo, hasn’t he? He doesn’t _need_ to go again anytime soon- he’d been just three weeks ago. And he can live without laundry services for a month.

He scrapes up all the money he can find- takes it from Sophie’s saddlebags, that one doll in his office that has a storage compartment, the back of Mildred’s picture’s frame- and when he tallies it, he grins and heads to the Father’s tent.

“Padre!” he calls. The Father opens the door, a Bible in his hand.

“Yes, Colonel?”

Potter thrusts the sock he’d used to store the cash in towards Mulcahy. “Don’t worry, it’s washed.”

“What’s this?” Mulcahy asks. His eyes widen to the size of quarters when he looks inside. “Colonel! This must be-”

“A month’s salary,” Potter says. “It wouldn’t kill me to wash my pants myself once in a while.”

“Colonel, I really- I mean-”

Mulcahy looks like someone’s dunked him in a river. “Take it, Padre,” Potter tells him. “Get those kids set up real nice. God knows they deserve it.” He pauses for a second and frowns. “Am I allowed to say that?”

…

 _She’s pulling much too many extra shifts,_ Potter thinks as he watches Margaret stride into post-op with a cup of coffee in her hands and immediately start to redress a wound. “Major!” he calls.

“Colonel, I’m really very busy,” she replies, gently unwinding the soiled bandage from a private’s arm. He exhales heavily, and she pats his shoulder.

Potter walks to the private’s bed and picks up Margaret’s coffee. It’s less sludge-like than usual, thankfully. He takes a sip and winces. “You’ve been here twenty hours and you’ve only had four hours of sleep. And you’ve been carrying on like this for the last week!”

“I’m gonna disinfect this, and it’s gonna sting a little,” Margaret tells the private. Her speech is almost comically fast. She dabs an alcohol-soaked cloth on the private’s wound, and he hisses. “I know, almost done. There.” She grabs a new bandage and begins to wind the boy’s arm again. “Colonel, I’m perfectly fit to perform my duties.”

“Then why are you talking faster than Sophie can run?”

She snips off the bandage and tapes the end into place. “I’m not talking fast!”

“No offense, ma’am, but y’kinda are,” the private says apologetically.

“Colonel, Private Martinson, I am _not_ talking fast, and that’ll be the end of this discussion, _thank you,”_ Margaret snaps.

Potter has been in three wars, and he knows which battles to fight. She’s performing her duties capably, and they’re not slated to get any wounded. She needs a distraction from that nasty business with her divorce. She’ll conk out eventually.

When she _does_ conk out, Potter regrets not ordering her to bed earlier. He pushes open the door to her tent, carrying a stack of blankets, a mug of liquid masquerading as tea, and a slice of what used to be toast. “Margaret,” he says. “Wake up.”

She sits bolt upright in the bed. “Yes, si-” Margaret barely gets a word in before she starts coughing her lungs out.

“Here, drink-” he hands her the mug- “and then eat.”

She sips tentatively at the mug and then screws up her face. _Really does remind me an awful lot of Evelyn,_ he thinks, feeling a sudden pang of homesickness. He hasn’t seen his daughter in an awful long time. “Colonel, don’t you have somewhere to be?” Margaret rasps, her bossy tone diminished but still present. _She’ll probably be bossing everyone around on her deathbed._

“I do, actually. _Here._ Looking after my officers.”

“That’s really-” Margaret pauses to cough- “not necessary.”

“I decide what’s necessary around here, Major. So hurry up and get better, because I’m driving myself crazy, having to do your share of the yelling around here.”

Margaret snorts weakly and takes another sip of her tea. “Thank you, Colonel.”

Potter takes a seat next to her bed and pulls a wad of paper out of his pocket. “Now, I still don’t think you should be doing duty rosters until you’re better.”

“Oh, come on, Colonel.” She coughs for a few seconds, and then adds on- “No offense.”

…

The day after Hunnicutt and Klinger get drunk and trash his office, Potter calls Hunnicutt into his office. “Take a seat,” he says.

Hunnicutt gingerly pulls up a chair, lowering himself onto it like he’s afraid it’s gonna explode. There’s still shattered glass all over the floor- Potter had left it there to make a point, even though he’d been scared that the glass would cut through his worn army boots. “Sir, I’m _really_ sorry about my behaviour last night,” Hunnicutt says. “I-”

“You know, when my daughter was born, I got called away to a VA hospital for a month the day after,” Potter says. “When I came back, she’d changed. I damn near cried, seeing her in her crib.”

Hunnicutt listens politely, a somewhat bewildered expression on his face. “Colonel, why-”

“Lemme finish,” Potter says. “Anyway, whenever I picked her up, she’d start wailing fit to burst my eardrums. Once I handed her off to Mildred, she’d quiet down immediately. But, y’know, I’d keep giving her toys, and feeding her, and holding her, and when she hit her first birthday, I was the only one in the house who could calm her down some nights. Now, I know that you’ve been over here much longer than a month, but the principle is the same. One of my old buddies from the big war, a French guy, he hadn’t seen his family in four years. When he went home, he felt like he didn’t know his kiddos at all, but he _got_ to know ‘em. I know you miss them, but you’re the only dad your daughter has, and she’ll find that out. Nobody else can take your place, and once you get home, you’ll get to rebuild your relationship. You’ll get to meet your Erin all over again.”

Hunnicutt sniffs. “Yeah, but what if she hates me for not being there? What if our relationship is never the same?”

“Of course it’s not gonna be the same! _You_ aren’t the same kid you were when you came over, are you? For one thing, you grew that ridiculous mustache. But change isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and you gotta learn to loosen your grip on everything and make the best of it.” Potter sighs. “And there’s no way your kiddo is gonna hate you.”

Hunnicutt sighs, too, and he rubs his hand over the lower half of his face. “Thanks, Colonel.”

“Now, if you ever pull a stunt like that again, you won’t make it back to San Francisco!” Potter tells him. Hunnicutt nods, a half-smile on his face. “Okay, get outta here. I gotta find out where Klinger’s been putting my daily reports.”

“Yessir,” Hunnicutt says.

…

Potter wants to look up at the commotion surrounding Pierce, but he can’t- the kid he’s got his hands in now is losing blood by the bucketful, and if he looks up, he’s liable to miss something. He works his way through the bleeders, tying and retracting and suturing as he goes, straining his ears to hear what’s going on over on the other side of the room. _God, what a bonehead move, giving Hunnicutt R &R. Of course Winchester had to go and get sick the next day. _

“Retract the kidney!” Pierce yells.

“Doctor, his pulse-”

“Tie that off, Kellye-”

“80 over 50-”

“Someone give me more 3-0 silk!”

“Doctor, it’s still dropping!”

“Goddamn, what’s bleeding? I can’t fucking- _suction!”_

“Doctor, his _pulse!”_

“Pump in more blood then! God, we had him! What the shit happened?”

“Doctor-”

“Gwen, more suction, and Margaret, if you tell me about his _fucking_ pulse one more time-”

“Hawkeye, I’m telling you-” Margaret sounds suddenly resigned, and Potter’s heart drops down to his belly.

“And _I’m_ telling _you-_ we can save- if I can just find the damn- _aha!”_ Pierce crows.

“What, Pierce?” Potter calls.

“Found it! Found the shrapnel! Must’ve moved, buried itself in the aorta- why isn’t his heart beating?”

Potter ties off his last bleeder and looks up as Baker suctions away the last of the blood in the kid’s bowel.

He doesn’t have to look to know that Margaret’s face has that stone mask over it. “Doctor, I don’t think we can-”

“I found the shrapnel, though!” Pierce exclaims. “I found it! He was perfectly stable before- and then I found it-”

“He’s _dead,_ Hawkeye,” Margaret says, her voice catching in her throat.

“Pierce,” Potter says. Pierce looks up from the table slowly, his eyes haunted. “All of you, listen to me.” The five nurses at Pierce’s table- Margaret, Kellye, Gwen, Able, and Walters- look at Potter, too. “You did the best you could, and that’s the best you can hope to do.”

“Margaret, please pull down my mask,” Pierce says, voice unsteady. She acquiesces, and then Pierce sprints from the room. Potter hears the sounds of retching outside, and he does his best to tell himself to _deal with it later._

“Bring in the next patient,” Potter calls.

“Pierce’s was the last one,” Klinger replies.

“Okay, good.” Potter strips off his gloves and heads outside.

Pierce is sitting with his back against the building, and Potter slowly takes a seat next to him, his knees protesting a little. It’s a nice night, one of the three nice nights Korea gets every year. “You gonna yell at me for swearing?” Pierce asks. “Or losing the patient?”

“No, I’m gonna offer you a drink,” Potter replies. “In a bar, with real chairs.”

“Don’t you know never to offer a recovering alcoholic a drink?” Pierce jokes.

 _“Are_ you an alcoholic?”

Pierce sighs and stands up, and then he offers Potter a hand. Potter reaches up and pats Pierce’s shoulder, and then they walk into the building and change into regular old fatigues before they head to the O Club.

Pierce doesn’t say a word for almost an hour. _Must be some kind of record,_ Potter wants to joke. He doesn’t, though- he just pays for yet another round. Finally, Pierce opens his mouth. “I really thought I’d had him,” he says, his voice a little unsteady.

“And you did, for a while,” Potter says.

“Yeah, well, a _while_ isn’t long enough.”

Pierce drinks. Potter had stopped after his third. Pierce must be on number six.

“Pierce, you can’t save every kid who comes through here. We’re only doctors.”

Pierce laughs bitterly. “Henry, he- he told me the same thing, once. He said something like, ‘There are certain rules about a war. Rule number one is: young men die. Number two is: doctors can’t change rule number one.”

“Sounds like a wise piece of advice.”

“Yeah, but he went and got himself shot out of the sky, so how wise was he, really?” Pierce asks, surprising Potter with the vehemence in his slurred voice. He downs his glass. “Gimme another shot.”

“I think you’ve had enough,” Potter tells him, gently pulling the glass out of his hands.

_“Colonel-”_

“Look, Pierce, you’re not God. None of us are. So if you wanna be mad at someone, either be mad at God or be mad at the jackasses running the whole thing, _not_ yourself. You couldn’t have saved that kid.”

“Why do _I_ get to live and not him?”

“There’s no reason! You decided to go to med school, and he did something else, and the balance worked in your favor. That’s it.”

“Colonel?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I need to puke again.”

Potter helps him outside, and pats his back as he heaves, and then drags him to the Swamp. The kid’s long limbs are all over the place, and his breath stinks. There’s not much that Potter can do except drop him into his cot and give him a blanket. He’s out like a light, and Potter makes a mental note to have someone bring him water in the morning.

…

 _“What?”_ Potter snaps when someone knocks on his office door. “I’m busy!”

“May we come in, O Bird-Emblazoned Benevolent One?” Klinger asks.

Potter rolls his eyes. “Who’s _we?”_

“Uh, just me, Captains Pierce and Hunnicutt, and the Majors, and the Father-”

“Are you just gonna list the whole camp? Come in.” Potter pushes his papers away. Something involving all of them- all of them _asking permission_ to enter his office, no less- has _got_ to be bad.

The door swings open, and Klinger wheels in a cart with a huge silver cover on it. “What’s this?” Potter asks. “Did you finagle something you shouldn’t have?”

“Well, that depends,” Klinger says, pulling the silver dome off the cart to reveal a plateful of East Asian food. “Should I have _not_ wheeled and dealed to get you this _delicious_ meal from the Pacific Pearl Restaurant?”

“Radar sends his appreciation, as well,” Winchester says.

“Yeah, you got a letter from him,” Klinger says. “He helped us with this.”

Potter looks over the top of his glasses at the meal. “What- how- _why-”_

“You’ve helped us a lot in the past few weeks,” Mulcahy says.

“Yeah, we wanted to show our appreciation!” Pierce adds. “Do you feel appreciated?” Potter says nothing, just stares at the massive plate of food- sushi and rice and all sorts of other goodies. “See, guys, I told you, we should’ve just bought him an octopus!”

“I’ve heard that the import tax on that is crazy, though,” Hunnicutt says.

“Oh, shut up, you two,” Margaret says. “Colonel? Do you like it?”

Potter looks up at the lot of them, anxiously smiling at him (even Winchester). A lump suddenly appears in his throat, and he grins slowly. “Do I _like_ it? This is fan-damn- sorry, Padre- tastic! You people are really something, y’know that? You’re really something.”

**Author's Note:**

> ty for reading! the fabulous @justalittlegreen prompted: "Potter among the kiddos, dispensing advice and maybe only losing his temper a little bit." i love me some grandpa potter y'all,,, he really is That Bitch huh  
> also, here's a hot tip: don't listen to the abba gold album for eight hours straight.


End file.
